MacGyver is an American action-adventure television series created by Lee David Zlotoff. Henry Winkler and John Rich were the executive producers. The show ran for seven seasons on ABC in the United States and various other networks abroad from 1985 to 1992. The series was filmed in Los Angeles during seasons 1, 2 and 7, and in Vancouver during seasons 3–6. The show's final episode aired on April 25, 1992 on ABC (the network aired a previously unseen episode for the first time on May 21, 1992, but it was originally intended to air before the series finale).

The series was a ratings success for ABC and was popular in the United States and worldwide. Two television movies, MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis and MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday, aired on ABC in 1994. A spin-off series, Young MacGyver, was planned in 2003, but only the pilot was made. Merchandise for MacGyver includes games and toys, print media and an original audio series. A feature film based on the series is being developed.[1]

The series revolved around MacGyver, whose main asset is his practical application of scientific knowledge and inventive use of common items – along with his ever-present Swiss Army knife. The clever solutions MacGyver implemented to seemingly unsolvable problems – often in life-or-death situations requiring him to improvise complex devices in a matter of minutes – were a major attraction of the show, which was praised for generating interest in the applied sciences, particularly engineering,[2][dubious– discuss] and for providing entertaining story lines. All of MacGyver's exploits on the show were ostensibly vetted to be based on scientific principles (even though, the creators acknowledged,[citation needed] in real life one would have to be extraordinarily lucky for most of MacGyver's ideas to succeed). In the few cases where MacGyver used household chemicals to create poisons, explosives, or other things deemed too dangerous to be accurately described to the public, details were altered or left vague.[3]

The use of ordinary household items to jury rig devices shows an influence from The A-Team (though MacGyver eschews firearms). The idea has entered United States popular culture: such constructions are referred to as "MacGyverisms" (a term first used in episode 3 of season 2, "Twice Stung"). MacGyver has become a verb,[4] as in "The car broke down but he MacGyvered a fix to get home", and was even used in Stargate SG-1, a later show featuring Richard Dean Anderson as a protagonist. The show often dealt with social issues, though more so in seasons 4–7 than 1–3, which were mostly about MacGyver's adventures working for the United States government and later the Phoenix Foundation.

Several episodes, including the pilot, begin with a cold open, finding MacGyver already on a mission. MacGyver often narrates a story from his childhood relating to his current situation. He resolves this situation quickly, and the main story commences after the opening credits. This opening sequence is called in the credits the "Opening Gambit" and is far more common in earlier episodes than in later ones. This segment is often written and directed by a different team than the main story of the episode. After the credits, the main story plays out in standard three-act structure. In many episodes, the opening sequence occurs after the opening credits and often does not involve MacGyver on a mission but rather in a situation used for character development. In the same manner as the "Opening Gambit" sequences, these opening segments often do not directly relate to the main story.

Richard Dean Anderson as Angus MacGyver, a secret agent who prefers not to carry or use a gun, due to a childhood accident with a revolver that resulted in the death of a friend.[5] However, MacGyver is willing to use an acquired gun, its parts, or its bullets in non-standard ways, such as a substitute for a wrench. There are three exceptions when he uses a gun for its original intended purpose: in the pilot episode, MacGyver is seen firing an AK-47 on a mission in the opening gambit (7:51 into the episode); he holds two kidnappers at gunpoint in the opening scene of episode 10, season one;[6] and, is seen using a gun in the TV movie Trail to Doomsday. He is often suspicious of militaristic attitudes within the government; he sees the Los Angeles based Phoenix Foundation, his employer, as an alternative to more conventional (and violent) means of law enforcement.[7]

MacGyver's family is rarely seen. His grandfather appears in a few episodes. In a flash back during the episode "Phoenix Under Siege" S2E11, MacGyver's grandfather talks to his wife and MacGyver talks to his father. In the second to last episode (The Stinger), it is revealed that he has a son he never knew about, and in the end the two of them ride off into the sunset on a motorcycle.

Dana Elcar as Pete Thornton, MacGyver's boss and best friend. He is an operative at the Department of External Services (DXS), which is where he is impressed by Mac's ingenuity while tracking down Murdoc (Michael Des Barres), an international assassin. When Thornton becomes director of operations at the Phoenix Foundation several years later, he brings MacGyver into the program. In addition to sending Mac out on various tasks for the foundation, Thornton is many times forced to bail MacGyver out of the trouble he gets into. Thornton has a son named Michael. Late in the show it is learned that Pete has glaucoma, an element written in because of Elcar developing glaucoma in real life.

Bruce McGill as Jack Dalton, MacGyver's comical best friend. He is a soldier of fortune/bush pilot who periodically gets everyone into a heap of trouble with various get rich quick schemes that only MacGyver can get them out of. His eye twitches when he's lying. Dalton often attempts to romance the women he is introduced to.

While creating the series MacGyver, John Rich was working on the sitcom Mr. Sunshine for ABC, which was short-lived and cancelled quickly. Henry Winkler had just finished off his eleven-year run on Happy Days and was looking for another project. Lee David Zlotoff was working as a producer for Remington Steele, which was airing on NBC. The three got together to form the basis for MacGyver and sold the idea to Paramount, and ABC became interested in the series.[8]

The series was filmed in Southern California for its first two seasons and again in its final season. From seasons 3~6, it was filmed in various locations around Vancouver in Canada.[9] Los Angeles remained as the setting of the show for the entire duration. In seasons 1 and 2, MacGyver was portrayed living in a waterfront apartment in Venice Beach. In season 3, he moved onto a houseboat at an unspecified location, though implied still to be in Los Angeles (the actual shooting took place at Coal Harbor near downtown Vancouver).[10]

When the series was in pre-production, Winkler and Rich were looking for a suitable actor for the lead.[8] After Richard Dean Anderson's appearance in the American television series The Love Boat, Winkler got Anderson to audition for the part.[11] According to Rich, every auditioning actor "hulked" his way through his audition. When Anderson eventually auditioned for the role, Winkler and Rich felt that he gave the character a human touch which the other actors could not. Both believed that Anderson would become one of the new "breakout" stars on American television.[8]

Anderson is known for having done many of the stunts in the series, though in later seasons he reduced his participation because of accumulating injuries. He injured his back and required foot surgery because of accidents working as a stuntman.[12]

The producers of MacGyver had a tendency to use the same actor in multiple roles throughout a series run. Kai Wulff played Stepan Frolov in season one's "Every Time She Smiles", Hans Visser in season four's "Collision Course", Ladysmith in season five's Black Rhino, and Nicolas Von Leer in season six's episode "Eye of Osiris". Gregory Sierra appeared in the season one episode "The Gauntlet", playing General Antonio Vasquez, the season two episode "Jack of Lies", playing Colonel Antunnez, and the season five episode "The Treasure of Manco", playing Captain Diaz. Nana Visitor appeared in the season one episode "Hellfire" as Laura Farren, and in the season two episode "DOA: MacGyver" she appears again as Carol Varnay. David Ackroyd appears in the season one episode "Trumbo's World" as Mr. Trumbo, and in the season three episode "The Negotiator" as Mr. Knapp. Walter Gotell appears in season three episode "GX-1" as a Russian psychic named Starkoss and in season four episode "Gold Rush" as General Barenov. Elyssa Davalos played Lisa Kohler/Kosov in "Lost Love: Part 1 & 2" in season 3, then just a few episodes later (in the same season) she re-appeared as Nikki Carpenter, a role which she reprised in several more episodes. Dana Elcar first appeared in the pilot episode as the chief of operations for KIVA laboratories under a different character name, Andy Colson.[13] Elcar returns later in the first season to play the main character, Pete Thornton.[14]

Two episodes of MacGyver's first season were co-written by Terry Nation, a British writer best known as the creator of the Daleks in Doctor Who.

After a slow start in its first season, MacGyver became a sleeper hit for ABC in its second season, during which it began a six-year run as the lead-in to ABC's Monday Night Football (the longest such run in history).[15] During the show's fourth season, Richard Dean Anderson complained that ABC was not marketing the series enough. Saying that the series is "just another action show" for ABC, he further stated that ABC didn't give the series enough promotion.[16]

MacGyver's seventh season was abbreviated. After the twelfth episode of the season aired on December 30, 1991, MacGyver disappeared from the ABC schedule and did not return until April 25, 1992 by which point the series had been cancelled. The finale aired that night, with a previously unaired episode following on May 21, 1992. When asked why the series was cancelled, Anderson replied: "The only reason it went off the air was that everybody was ready to move on. I was physically exhausted and had no life."[17]

ABC replaced MacGyver with The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, a series based on George Lucas's film series and coproduced by Lucas and Steven Spielberg's production companies for Paramount Television. Unlike MacGyver, the Young Indiana Jones series failed to catch on and was cancelled after its only season. ABC and Paramount would attempt to find one more hit lead in for Monday Night Football with The Marshal in 1995, but the series was cancelled at the end of the NFL season and Paramount and ABC's longstanding relationship withered away as any Paramount-produced series that aired on ABC thereafter either was cancelled after a season (Philly, Blind Justice) or moved to another network (Sister, Sister, Clueless).[18] (The two production companies, through ABC's succession of Touchstone Television and CBS' production arm's merger with Paramount Television, did eventually produce hit series later on; Numb3rs and Criminal Minds are two of these series.)

In 1994, the series was released in over seventy different worldwide markets.[19] Because of popular demand, two TV-movies were created, both released in 1994. The first movie MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis premiered in the United States in May. The film was shot in England and Greece. The second movie was entitled MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday. Anderson served as executive producer for both films,[19] which were filmed in Europe.[20] Re-runs of the series still air in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Alongside local syndication, reruns aired on the USA Network from 1990 to 1997, on WGN America from 1998 to 2002, on TV Land from January 2003 to 2006, on Spike for a brief time in 2005. It is currently aired on Cloo (2011–present) with marathon blocks shown on the weekends.

In 2003, The WB Television Network had a pilot for a possible new Young MacGyver series starring Jared Padalecki as MacGyver's nephew Clay, but opted to pass on it.[21] In an August 2007 survey commissioned by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, Americans polled voted MacGyver as the favorite fictional hero they would want to have if they were ever caught in an emergency.[22] Lee David Zlotoff, creator of the series, announced on May 3, 2008, that a MacGyver film was in the planning stages.[23] He would produce the film along with Martha De Laurentiis and Raffaella De Laurentiis through her Raffaella Productions.[24] Richard Dean Anderson has expressed interest in revisiting his role,[25] however there is no confirmation on who would be playing the role of MacGyver in the film.[26]

Paramount Home Entertainment has released all 7 seasons of MacGyver on DVD in Regions 1, 2 and 4. On October 16, 2007, CBS DVD released MacGyver: The Complete Series, a special collectors' edition box set that features all 139 episodes of the series as well as the two TV movies that followed.

On June 15, 2010, Paramount released the two TV movies on DVD in Region 1 in a separate single-disc release entitled MacGyver - The TV Movies.[27]

On January 13, 2015, CBS Home Entertainment announced they will release a repackaged version of the complete series set on DVD in Region 1, at a lower price, on April 7.[28]

The series was on Hulu for a time. No one truly knows why it was removed. One possible reason for this is sometimes the shows are windowed meaning "only there for a set time". HD, 4K, and Blu-ray versions have no official word at this time.

The character's ability to use everyday objects to perform extraordinary feats has been widely referenced and parodied. There have been a few comedic spin-offs of the show, such as Saturday Night Live's "MacGruber," which later was made into a full feature film named MacGruber, and a parody of the song "Hey There Delilah", which was given the name "Hey There MacGyver."

In 2006, Anderson appeared in a MasterCard television commercial for Super Bowl XL. In it, he manages to cut the ropes binding him to a chair using a pine tree air freshener, uses an ordinary tube sock as the pulley for a zip-line, and somehow repairs and hot-wires a nonfunctional truck using a paper clip, ballpoint pen, rubber band, tweezers, nasal spray, and a turkey baster. In contrast to previous MasterCard commercials showing people making extravagant purchases to accomplish some mundane task, MacGyver is here portrayed as escaping from some sort of deathtrap using less than $20 worth of common household items. The commercial ends by showing him purposefully buying an assortment of such things at a department store with his credit card (as a tongue-in-cheek explanation for how he seems to always have items he needs on hand no matter where he goes). Although the commercial implies that Anderson is portraying MacGyver, he is not identified.[29]

The series is referenced in episodes of The Simpsons, primarily detailing Marge Simpson's sisters Patty and Selma's obsession with the show and their crush on the MacGyver character. The sisters' regular viewing of the show is an unalterable element of their daily schedule to the point of death as demonstrated in the episode "Black Widower". The episode featured a fictional scene of MacGyver where he downplays his role in saving a village ("Don't thank me. Thank the moon's gravitational pull").[30] In another episode, "A Star is Burns", Homer tricks Jay Sherman into insulting MacGyver in front of Patty and Selma; Sherman ends up being hung from the rain gutter by his underpants, and Bart asks "You badmouthed MacGyver, didn't you?" Anderson himself is an avid fan of The Simpsons, and even provided his voice for an episode of the show titled "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore", which first aired April 9, 2006, where Patty and Selma kidnap Richard Dean Anderson after he admits that he never liked doing MacGyver and only did the show for the money.

In the first episode of Anderson's later show, Stargate SG-1, Amanda Tapping mentions that the Air Force had to "MacGyver" a Dial Home Device for the Stargate, and a split-second shot following this shows Anderson twitching an eyebrow. (However, this line was removed when this episode was re-released in 2009.[31] ) There is a blooper reel where Tapping's character, who is trapped with Anderson's character on a glacier, begins ranting about how "we got belt buckles, shoelaces and a piece of gum. Build a nuclear reactor, for cryin' out loud! You used to be MacGyver, MacGadget, MacGimmick... now you're Mr. MacUseless... Dear God, I'm stuck on a glacier with MacGyver!" Later, various episodes establish that Jack O'Neill (Anderson's character) has an immense love of the cartoon series "The Simpsons".

In 2007, the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live featured a parody of MacGyver called "MacGruber" with Will Forte as the title character. The intros for these skits featured scenes from the MacGyver series. MacGruber and cohorts are always locked in a control room of some type with a bomb set to go off in 15–20 seconds. MacGruber has his co-stars hand him components to defuse the device, but something inevitably gets in the way (either situational, because MacGruber himself interferes, or because no one wants to touch what he has asked for) and the bomb detonates. In the March 7, 2009 installment of the "MacGruber" sketches, it was revealed that MacGyver is MacGruber's long-lost father. In 2010 the character was featured in its own R-rated spinoff movie, entitled MacGruber; the film was released by Rogue Pictures.

In 2008 the phrase "What would MacGyver do?" was used in a New Zealand television commercial for Gregg's "freestyle cooking" range of herbs and spices. The commercial featured the word MacGyver unfolding like a puzzle with a potato peeler and chopping knife opening out like the blades of a Swiss Army knife.[32]

MacGyver is also featured in the video game "BroForce" as "MacBrover". In the game the character's main attack is a stick of dynamite and the special attack is a bunch of dynamites stuffed inside a turkey, which attracts the enemies to it.

MacGyver employs his resourcefulness and his knowledge of chemistry, physics,[3] technology, and outdoorsmanship to resolve what are often life-or-death crises. He creates inventions from simple items to solve these problems. These inventions became synonymous with the character and were called MacGyverisms by fans.[33] MacGyver was unlike secret agents in other television series and films because, instead of relying on high-tech weapons and tools, he carried only a Swiss Army knife and duct tape but never a gun.[3]

This also led to the verb, "to MacGyver". "MacGyverism" was first used by Joanne Remmings (played by Pamela Bowen) in the third episode of Season 2. When MacGyver introduces himself to her, she uses the term in a manner that suggests other people had used it before:[34]

"Oh I've heard about you! You're the guy who does the whatchamacallits, you know, MacGyverisms; turns one thing into another?"

In an 1989 interview with Richard Dean Anderson, Arsenio Hall said that he had heard the word MacGyver used as a verb meaning "to do the impossible." Anderson then used it as an adjective meaning "impossible." Anderson stated that his show's producers had just missed out on getting the word "MacGyverism" entered into the Webster's Dictionary and that "we" intended to try to get it in the next update.[35]

The show's writers based MacGyver's inventions on items they found on location, concepts from scientific advisers John Koivula and Jim Green, and real events.[3] The show offered a monetary prize to people who sent good ideas for the show. A young fan suggested that MacGyver could patch up a vehicle's radiator by cracking an egg into it. The episode "Bushmaster" was constructed around this trick, and the fan was rewarded (producer Henry Winkler said in a 2005 NPR interview that that was his favorite "MacGyverism"). Although staff read every letter, few usable ideas were obtained in this way.[33]

In the short film series, MacGyver now runs a mobile repair service with his daughter Caitlin. They go to a high-rise building to fix a faulty air conditioning system when a group of terrorists incapacitate all of the occupants with knockout gas and take over the building. Despite his age, MacGyver uses his skills to overcome the knockout gas and follow the terrorists, discovering a military bunker below the basement. After the terrorists load a large crate into a van, MacGyver follows them in his Citan work van to a shipping yard, where the terrorists begin an exchange deal with another party. Inside the crate is a robot soldier, which goes haywire and kills everyone on sight. MacGyver then drives his Citan and runs over the robot before deactivating to save the day.

In February 2015, in conjunction with the National Academy of Engineering and several other partners, Lee David Zlotoff announced a crowdsourcing competition, in which contestants would submit ideas for a new MacGyver character to serve as the basis for the pilot of a new series.[38] At the end of the competition in April 2015, five winners are to receive cash prizes and to be "paired with a successful Hollywood TV producer to develop his or her script." The only strict requirement for submissions is that the new character will be a woman.

In 2012 Tony Lee joined with MacGyver creator Lee David Zlotoff and technical advisor John Potter to write a 5 part comic book series of MacGyver titled MacGyver: Fugitive Gauntlets. The story is set in modern times but maintained all the major elements of the old show, including well known character Pete Thornton and the Phoenix Foundation as well as the much loved voice-overs and MacGyverisms.

The first issue was released Oct 10, 2012 with a new issue released each month ending with issue 5 on Feb 27, 2013.

The comic book was very well received around the world with the first issue selling out within the first 2 weeks[41] and received mostly favorable reviews through major comic book sites. However series lead author, Tony Lee, confirmed in September 2014 that the series in total did not sell well enough to warrant a second series.[42]